Need an SEO Consult?
For more information and help improving search ranking of your content, email Digital Strategy at digitalstrategy@towson.edu.
SEO stands for search engine optimization — a term for the methods that search engines (like Google and Bing) use to rank web pages in search results.
On this page:
Search engines use “bots” that comb through websites for new pages or updated information on old pages. Bots also crawl pages for links, which they use to navigate through and crawl those pages. This process continues until every available page has been crawled.
Indexing is when a search engine processes and analyzes content, determining whether and how to store it in a database so the information can be retrieved quickly when a user performs a search.
Once a search engine has crawled and indexed your site, it will use specific criteria to rank that content on the search engine result page (SERP).
There are hundreds of factors that go into ranking. Some of the most impactful factors include:
Search engines use artificial intelligence to more accurately recommend content based on a person’s search intent. This means that stuffing keywords (placing them on the page as many times as possible) won’t help your SEO strategy. But using specific keywords to help answer user questions will.
For example, if you are creating a program page for Marketing and Communications Studies, writing “marketing and communications studies” every few sentences will not get your webpage ranked higher. However, including “marketing and communications undergraduate degree in Maryland” strategically in the copy may help the page rank higher.
Google Search has started including their AI Overview with every search result. This is a new feature through which Google's AI tools create a summarized answer to any search query by analyzing indexed pages. For example, if someone searches “why study marketing and communications,” and your “why study” page has ranked high on Google’s index, that page content may be used to answer the question through the AI Overview. It's currently unclear whether this feature will offer more clicks to your site.
In general, SEO improves when users stay engaged on a particular page or site. When you are writing for the web, be sure to always follow web best practices.
If you want a high-ranking page, consider:
Before creating a new page, consider also if there's a page on your site that already includes a lot of the same information. Is it a page you can edit to be more comprehensive?
Remember that Google sees older, more established pages as more authoritative, and ranks them accordingly. You may be better off updating older pages with new and relevant information.
Confirm the following before publishing your page:
For a detailed guide on SEO, visit Google’s .
For more information and help improving search ranking of your content, email Digital Strategy at digitalstrategy AT_TOWSON.
Keywords are words used by search engines to help pull relevant information for users.
In general, keyword research is done strategically at a high-level for an entire website so that every page targets a different keyword phrase and content does not compete.
While the Digital Strategy team cannot support all keyword research, we recommend using free resources to get you started, especially when creating a new page.
A keyword phrase could have 2 words or many more depending on the search volume.
Typically longer keyword phrases with 3 or more words will have a lower search volume, so sometimes the best strategy is to incorporate lots of low-volume, longer keyword phrases on a page. This way your page will more likely rank higher since it has less competing content across other sites.
For a more in-depth look at keywords, visit .
When appropriate, images and snippets can help keep users engaged. By adding visual components and easy-to-scan sections, users are more likely to stay on the page and stay engaged. Using unique, informative images with strong alt text goes a long way.
Headers (h2, h3, etc.) when used in the correct order, keep people engaged on the page. Headers which incorporate keywords, a top ranking factor, show search engines whether the content on your page is relevant to a user. Descriptive, unique headers improve readability of content, making it much easier to skim and understand. Make sure that headers summarize the content in the section and make sense to your audience.
Alt text (alternative text) plays an important role in both accessibility and SEO. Alt text can help drive traffic to a page from an image search. For more information on how to best use alt text, visit Alt Text Best Practices.
In addition to alt text and headers, there are a couple other ways you can ensure your content is accessible. When linking, make sure the link is descriptive and not generic (i.e. if you’re linking to a program, say “discover more about Program Name” rather than “read more.”)
When possible, put all content on the webpage rather than linking to documents, especially for content that is frequently updated and shared on any digital platform.
Internal linking is when you hyperlink other pages from your site onto your page. This helps keep users engaged and shows Google that your website is an authority. When it makes sense, link related pages within the text or use the Related Links snippet.
When appropriate, it can help to link to outside sources. When a search engine sees that you have linked to a trustworthy source, it will consider your website more credible as well.
When naming your URL, be sure to use dashes – not underscores _ and include keywords rather than a random generated URL.